Redd Kross have been the quintessential underground band for the past three decades. The band has nearly always eschewed both pop and indie convention by staying true to its sound, likely angering as many pop fans with its snottiness and random references to Tatum O’Neil and Shonen Knife as they would indie purirsts with its insistence on lacing its acidic songs with undeniable pop hooks.

From Hawthorne, Calif. and based around the duo of brothers Jeff and Steve McDonald, Redd Kross first released music in 1980 with a self-titled EP, after opening for Black Flag as teenagers for its first gig. Other musicians came and went as the band released records throughout the ’80s and ’90s, hitting their stride with 1987’s Neurotica and 1990's Third Eye. Following 1997’s Show World, the band all but disappeared, with its members occasionally surfacing for other projects — Steve McDonald famously added bass parts to The White Stripes’ White Blood Cells, redubbing it Redd Blood Cells, which saw thousands of downloads and press hubbub. The brothers McDonald separately produced albums by other artists as well.

The elusive band returned in 2006 to play a set at REDCAT in Los Angeles covering the band’s entire catalog, featuring the Neurotica-era lineup of the McDonalds, Robert Hecker and Roy McDonald. They toured and played a killer set of the entire Born Innocent album opening for Sonic Youth, who played all of Daydream Nation (I was there! Yessss.), at the Greek Theater in L.A. In 2008 they played Coachella, among numerous other festivals and appearances over the past few years. Now, finally, Redd Kross have released an album of new material, entitled Researching the Blues. The album has seen some of the band’s best reviews, garnering an 81% on reviews aggregator Metacritic, and it’s not hard to see why, hearing the enlivened swagger the band displays on songs like the title track (download free here), while maintaining the dynamism that has always set the band apart, also including shimmering power-pop ballads like “Dracula’s Daughter” and “Winter Blues.”

In a short amount of time, Ty Segall has provided us with so much musical goodness in the recorded form that it’s hard to believe he’ll be releasing two (well, two-and-a-half-ish) albums this year. He’ll release a mini album on In the Red in June under Ty Segall Band, recorded with his touring band, which includes Charlie Moothart guitar (“He’s a complete shredder and dominator, he taught me everything I know about playing guitar,” Segall says), Mikal Cronin on bass and Emily Epstein on drums. The record will be mixed in Berkeley’s Fantasy Studios — where Creedence Clearwater Revival recorded, Segall points out — and recorded with Eric Bauer, who has recorded with Segall several times, including his most recent studio album, 2011’s Goodbye Bread.

A regular full-length also is due on Drag City under his own name in the fall. On top of all that, he’s releasing a collaboration LP with White Fence on Drag City in April, which he’s currently touring behind. Ty Segall and White Fence appear together March 3 at the Troubador.

I took some time to speak to Ty, who’s S.F.-based but was born in Laguna Beach, about his upcoming tours, release schedule, and how many songs he’s recorded.

PST: Last year, around the time Goodbye Bread was released, you said you wanted the next album to sound like Satan in Space, Hawkwind meets Sabbath and that sorta thing. Is that the direction the new material has ended up taking?

Lots of very cool shows happening this weekend for Halloween. On Halloween,Zola Jesusis playing at the Echoplex and Abe Vigoda is playing Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock, with DJ sets from Air France and The Field. The day before, on Oct. 30, Tijuana Panthers take the stage at the Ukrainian Cultural Center with fellow garage rockers The Soft Pack, Thee Oh Sees and Total Control. Three-piece Tijuana Panthers, with drummer Phil Shaheen, guitarist Chad Wachtel and bassist Daniel Michicoff, play a kind of punk-influenced surf rock that shows the line from The Ventures to The Buzzcocks to Jay Reatard is a short one indeed, seamlessly combinging straightforward, clean-but-not-clean-cut guitars, alternatingly bratty and crooning vocals and old school rock-combo rhythms — check out their gorgeously bummed out "Summer Fun" below for a fine example of what they do. I took a minute to talk to Shaheen about their sound.

PST: Are you guys working on new songs yet? If so, how is the sound shaping up?

Shaheen: Yeah, we have steadily been coming up with new ones, playing them live at shows and then recording them. They shape up well this way, playing them live then recording has always helped us to tight'n them up. Just need to record a few more next week and we should be on our way.

PST: Are you guys surprised at all by the recent resurgence of bands playing garage rock and surf rock?

Shaheen: No, not really. It seems to come in waves, this one seems a lot larger.

PST: Do you guys mind at all getting lumped in with other bands that play that kind of music? I could see it being frustrating, but also there seems to be a camaraderie among bands like you guys, Audacity and Ty Segall.

Shaheen: Yeah there's not a perfect fit for us there but, we get along pretty well with all those bands. Joe Walters from the Redwood Bar use to call us “Barbershop Surfpop,” I always liked that.

PST: One thing I feel like sets you guys apart is your vocals. They’re really great, I love that they're spread out among the members and that they’re often nice and croony, rather than full on garage all the time. Is that something you guys consciously tried to do, make sure the vocals actually sounded like real singing?

Shaheen: Yes. We have always kept it pretty clean for the most part. Chad croons, I whine, Daniel croons and whines.

PST: I lived in Long Beach for years, and I love that you guys represent it so well. It definitely captures the place somehow, although I can’t quite put my finger on how. If there’s a sound to Long Beach that you guys help embody, what do you think that is?

Shaheen: Long Beach has always had a pretty steady stew of counter culture, it's a port city. Maybe we rep a little piece of that.

PST: Do you have any favorite venues to play?

Shaheen: Shows that FYF put on are always rad, where ever they may be. It’s great getting to play these halls like the old timers use to.

PST: What's the craziest thing you’ve seen at one of your shows?

Shaheen: We got to play with The Dead Milkmen at Alex's Bar in Long Beach. Seeing those guys in person was really crazy and the fact that we got to play with them blew my mind. I still can't believe that went down.

PST: Stock question, but what bands did you guys bond over, and who are some artists people might not expect you guys to be into?

It’s been an unusually chilly and ridiculously gloomy summer in San Francisco but the lo-fi, garage, surf punks in Wavves ushered in a bonafide sunny summer day when they played an instore at Amoeba SF yesterday. The band’s youth-addled fans cascaded from the outer reaches of the world music section all the way to shore break at the front of the stage, staring with mouths agape when they weren’t singing along to their new summer anthems.

The San Diego-based band is touring behind their new release King of the Beach, which is the third Wavves album but the first featuring the current lineup of o.g. creator and front man Nathan Williams (guitar/vox), Stephen Pope (bass), and Billy Hayes (drums). Williams has slightly refined the slacker self-loathing he imperfectly trumpeted on Wavves’s previous bedroom productions by entering an actual studio and enlisting the help of Dennis Herring who has produced albums by the likes of Throwing Muses, Camper Van Beethoven and Modest Mouse. Pope and Hays (formerly the late Jay Reatard’s rhythm section) match and ratchet up Williams’s stoner thrash both in the studio, where they share a few song-writing credits, and on the stage, where they flail on flying V’s and bang kits in a mess of hair and crushed beer cans.

Before Jay Reatard passed away earlier this month, he did a trifecta Amoeba instore tour, hitting all three of our stores in the month of August. At the San Francisco stop, he took the time to tell us what was in his bag! There's one shocker (or is it?) -- he chose ABBA! Check it out below: